Work and Leisure

98 Chris Gratton and Peter Taylorincrease from 1985 to 1995. This contrasts with the increase in work time thatSchor reports.Robinson and Godbey’s explanation is that with increasing pressures onthe use of time, at work and at leisure (a concept termed ‘time deepening’),people are inclined to perceive increases in time at work when no realincreases have occurred. There is therefore a gap between perceived (survey)hours of work and actual (time budget) hours of work, a gap which getsbigger the longer the actual hours worked. Robinson and Godbey (1999)estimate the gap averaged 4.9 hours a week for women and 4.8 hours a weekfor men in 1995, that is on average people perceived that they worked nearly5 hours longer per week than they actually did.Robinson and Godbey also estimate the trends from 1965 to 1995 in combinedpaid and unpaid work, results which for the latest decade show similaroverall trends to Gershuny’s UK data. They report that for employed womencombined work time fell from 1965 to 1985 but then rose from 1985 to 1995to exceed the level experienced in 1975. For employed men there was a similartrend, with a sharp fall from 1965 to 1975, then stability followed by a risefrom 1985 to 1995, bringing work time back up to a level between the 1965and 1975 averages. From 1985 to 1995 the rises in combined work time were3.1 hours a week for women and 2.2 hours a week for men.Corresponding estimates by Robinson and Godbey of changes in free timefrom 1985 to 1995 suggest a decline of 1.2 hours a week for employed womenand an increase for employed men of 2.6 hours. The reconciliation of morehours of combined work time and more hours of free time for employed menlies in a reduction in obligated activities such as personal care, accordingto Robinson and Godbey’s estimates. This is in contrast to the increase inobligated time commitments (particularly childcare) reported for the UK byGershuny.JapanJapan has traditionally had substantially higher working hours than eitherBritain or the USA. Table 5.5 shows the trend in working hours in the UK,United States and Japan from 1870 to 1970. In 1870, all three countries hadremarkably similar working hours per year. Even by 1929, there was littledifference between the three countries in terms of hours worked. The differenceis that Japan has not seen the rapid decline in working hours in the postwarperiod (at least until 1970) that Britain and the United States haveexperienced.If we examine Table 5.6 Britain seems to be closer to the position in Europewhen it comes to the availability of leisure time than they are to the UnitedStates or Japan. The European worker is most different when it comes topaid holiday entitlement. Whereas 5 or 6 weeks are common in Europe, theJapanese worker takes only 9 days, and the American 16 days. In fact,